12 SCOTS TRIALS
THE DOOM OF LADY WARRISTON
Doun by yon garden green
Sae merrily as she gaes ;
She has twa weel-made feet,
And she trips upon her taes.
She has twa weel-made feet,
Far better is her hand ;
She's jimp about the middle
As ony willy-wand.
--The Laird of Waristoun. |
THE house of Warriston
crowns a swelling rise among lawns
and shrubberies, overshadowed by goodly trees, within a mile
of Edinburgh, midway between the city and the Firth. From
this vantage ground it commands a noble prospect: to the
north, beyond the estuary of the Forth, the coast and hills
of Fife; to the south the terraced buildings of the New Town,
climbing one above another towards the lofty ridge where
Auld Reekie sits supreme. Westward lie the woods and
pleasant slopes of Inverleith; eastward is Warriston Cemetery,
wherein "a certain archway, a formidable but beloved spot,"
seemed to the child Stevenson the veritable "Death's dark
vale " of the Scots metrical psalm, in the illustration of which
his uncanny fancy employed other places in the immediate
neighbourhood familiar to his early years.
To-day the cable cars clank past the old-world
lodge gates
of Warriston, and the city, advancing steadily across the con-
quered fields, beleaguers it on every side. A few more years,
and of house and policies, transformed by the masonic arts of
the speculator, nought shall survive except a name.
The house itself, though of a respectable
antiquity, has in
its turn supplanted a more ancient place or fortalice--that
[16]
"gloomy house of Warristoun hanging over a deep black pool"
--which in the seventeenth century yet occupied the site. At
the period in question, between the lands of Warriston and the
Firth lay the wind-swept waste of Wardie Muir, bordered by
the Water of Leith on its course to the sea, with here and
there some solitary homestead, the very names of which, as
Windlestrawlee and Blaw Wearie, strike comfortless upon
the ear. On the edge of the muir, nearer the water than the
present house, stood the old mansion of Inverleith, no trace of
which remains save the pillars of the gateway, surmounted by
heraldic monsters, flanking the entrance from St. Bernard's
Row. Down the avenue that winds by the side of the water,
and between these stony guardians, in the golden days of Auld
Reekie's past "the mulberry-coloured coach " of Mrs. Rocheid
of Inirerleith was wont to convey that magnificent dame to the
Assembly Rooms of the Old Town, a harbour of ceremonious
fashion, as Henry Cockburn relates, into which she would "sail
like a ship from Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling in
silk," to the admiration and envy of beholders.
Sterner memories cluster about the house of
Warriston. In
the latter half of the sixteenth century the estate, which like
its neighbour of Inverleith has often changed proprietors,
belonged to a branch of the Kincaids of that ilk, an ancient
Stirlingshire family. On 15th June 1577, as appears from
the Justiciary Records, John Kincaid of Warriston was one of
the assize (jury) on the trial of John Sempill of Beltries, the
husband of Mary Livingstone of the Four Maries, accused "of the
treasonable conspiracy of my Lord Regent's Grace's slaughter"
--an attempt upon the life of the Regent Morton. On 20th
November 1579 certain Dalmahoys of that ilk, with two of the
Rocheids and others, were tried for besieging William Somervell,
apparently a tenant of the Kincaids, "within his dwelling-place
of Warriston," and were acquitted of the charge "of the shooting
and bearing of pistolets in the month of July, and thereafter
coming to the house and asseiging thereof and shooting of
[17]
pistolets thereat, and hurting and wounding Barbara Barrie."
On 27th May 1591 Robert Cairncross, "callit Mekle Hob,"
and three other miscreants were charged "of art and part of the
rapt and ravishing [abduction] of Jean Ramsay, Lady Warriston,
against the Acts of Parliament and laws of this realm made
thereanent, committed the XIX. day of March last by-past."
The victim of this outrage was, according to Fountainhall, a
member of the Dalhousie family.
The tragedy which has secured for the house
of Warriston
a place in the criminal and domestic annals of Scotland occurred
on Tuesday, 1st July 1600. Two contemporary writers have
briefly noticed the crime and its consequences. Robert Birrel,
"Burges of Edinburghe," in his quaint and valuable Diary
records on the 2nd of that month: --" Johne Kincaid of
Waristone murderit be hes awin wyff and servant man, and
her nurische being also upone the conspiracy. The said gentil-
woman being apprehendit, scho wes tare to the Girth Crosse
upon the 5 day of Julii, and her heid struk fra her bodie at
the Cannagait fit; quha diet verie patiently. Her nurische
wes brunt at the same tyme, at 4 houres in the morneing, the
5 of Julii." Calderwood, the historian, also refers to the case:--
"Upon Fryday [Saturday] the 4 [5] of July [1600], the Lady
Warristoun, daughter of the Laird of Dunipace, was beheaded in
the Cannongate, for the murther of her husband. The Nurse
and ane hyred woman, her complices, were burnt in the Castle-
bill of Edinburgh. The horse-boy fled, being guiltie." '
The only authorities now available are the
official record of
the trial and condemnation of "the horse-boy," Robert Weir,
and an authentic and very remarkable Memorial of the Conver-
sion of Jean Livingston, Lady Waristoun, with an Account of
her Carriage at her Execution, July 1600, privately printed
by
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe in 1827, from the original among
the Wodrow MSS. in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
The tragic story was of course enshrined in
the popular
ballads of the day under the title of The Laird of Warriston.
[18]
No less than three variants have been preserved in print, and
Pitcairn, writing in 1833, says that " several are still sung and
recited in various parts of Scotland." One, printed by Jamieson,
was taken down by Sir Walter Scott from the recitation of his
mother, the others were first published respectively by Buchan
and Kinloch. All three versions are included in the collections
of Maidment and of Professor Child.
Few of the surrounding facts of the case have
come down to
us, and tradition, as exemplified by the ballads, gives these in
varying forms; but across the darkness of three hundred years
a lurid light is thrown upon the actual deed by the brief account
of Weir's trial, while the spiritual feats of the fair penitent
have been chronicled with a particularity which makes one
wish that the pious reporter had spared among his windy
paragraphs some space for the cause and circumstances of
her crime
The property was at that period in the possession
of John
Kincaid, called the Laird of Warriston, a landed proprietor and
a person of some consideration in Edinburgh, whose family,
the Kincaids of that ilk, then owned extensive estates in the
counties of Edinburgh, Linlithgow, and Stirling. His wife,
Jean Livingstone, by Scots courtesy Lady Warriston, the young
and beautiful daughter of John Livingstone of Dunipace, in the
county of Stirling, was born in 1579. Both husband and wife
were related to many of the first families in Scotland. It is
generally assumed that the laird was well advanced in years,
and it has even been said that he was thrice married, but in
the contemporary Latin epitaph on the lady, printed by Sharpe,
both the parties are described as having been married very
young and against their inclinations, invita invito subjuncta
puella puello, with results disastrous to both--nihil in
thalamo
nisi rixæ, jurgia, lites.
How long they had been married does not appear.
"For
I have been your wife, These nine years running ten," says the
lady in the ballad; but the fact that she was executed for her
[19]
husband's murder in her twenty-first year renders this state-
ment unlikely. In one version she thus apostrophises her
spouse, who is referred to as "the young lord " :--
O Warriston, O Warriston,
I wish that ye may sink for sin!
I was but bare fifteen years auld,
Whan first I enter'd your yates within.
Another makes the match one of interest on the
girl's part
"For he married me for love, But I married him for fee."
Be the fact as it may, the marriage was certainly an unhappy
one, whether from disparity or inadequacy of years, the singular
character of the lady, the laird's alleged brutality, or other
causes, we have now no means of judging, and the unfriendly
relations of the pair appear to have been notorious. That the
young wife was grossly ill-treated by her husband is as much
an article of faith with the ballad-makers as are her remarkable
physical charms, but in view of her subsequent conduct we
may assume that the faults were not wholly on his side.
The indictment of Weir for the murder of John
Kincaid
describes the " Guidwife of Waristoun " as having "conceived
ane deadly rancour, hatred and malice" against her husband
"for the alleged biting of her in the arm and striking her
divers times." In two of the ballads her resentment originates
in a quarrel at the family dinner-table, when, in return for an
answer that "wasna good," the laird, with regrettable impetu-
osity, threw a plate at his wife, which cut and bled her mouth.
The incident recalls Mrs. O'Dowd's description of the Poskys'
ménage : "They say they've come to broken pleets." Doubly
hurt, the lady withdrew to her chamber, where "Man's Enemie,"
recognising his opportunity, appeared to her in person and
instructed her how she might be "avenged." In the third
ballad the injury done to the lady, though a purely moral one,
was much graver: "Whae's aught that bairn on your knee?
. . . This bonny bairn is not mine." She had, in fact, an infant
son at the time of the murder.
[20]
In the more prosaic version of the indictment,
the evil
genius of Lady Warriston was her nurse, Janet Murdo, the
"fausee nourice" of the ballad and a darker spirit than Juliet's
famous attendant, with whom she consulted as to the best
means of getting rid of her husband.
Her father, John Livingstone, who according
to tradition
enjoyed the.precarious favour of his Sovereign, James the Sixth
--"The Laird o' Dunipace," as the ballad has it," Sat at the
King's right knee"--was in attendance on His Majesty at the
Palace of Holyrood House, where the Court was then in resi-
dence. Among his servants was one Robert Weir, "the
horse-boy" or groom whom the nurse proposed as a suitable
person to execute the dead. "I shall go seek him," said this
resolute dame to her young mistress, whose cause she vigor-
ously espoused, "and if I get him not, I shall seek another;
and if I get none, I shall do it myself !" Weir, however, proved
equal to the dreadful task, although the balladists, from a
mistaken sense of chivalry, assign the leading part to the lady.
The said Robert "accordingly came down twice or thrice to
the place of Warriston in the month of June with a view
to arranging the necessary details, but, somewhat unaccount-
ably, "he could get no speech of her." On Tuesday, 1st July,
Lady Warriston again sent the nurse to Holyrood, "desiring
him of new to come down to her," and that afternoon, on
the arrival of Weir, a conference was held in the laird's own
house "concerning the cruel, unnatural, and abominable"
project. In one of the ballads the lady, by instructions of the
Tempter, induces the laird that evening to exceed his usual
quantity of wine:-
So at table as they sat,
And when they drank the wine,
She made the glass aft gas round,
To the Laird o' Warristoun.
The circumstances of the murder are thus described
in the
words of Weir's indictment, the quaintness of the ancient style
[21]
aggravating the horror of the scene :--"And for performeance
thairof, the said Robert Weir was secrelie convoyit to ane
laich [low] seller within the said place, quhairin he abaid quhill
[until] mydnycht ; about the quhilk tyme he, accompaneit with
the said umqle [late] Jeane Levingstoun,
cam furth of the said
laich seller up to the hall of the said place, and thairfra cam
to the chalmer quhair the said umqle
Johnne was lyand in his
bed, takand the nychtis rest; and haifing enterit within the
said chalmer, persaveing the said umqle
Johnne to be walknit
out of his sleip be thair dyn, and to preise ouer his bed-stok
[front of his bed], the said Robert cam than rynnand to him,
and maist crewallie with thair faldit neiffis [clenched fists]
gaif him ane deidlie and crewall straik on the vane-organe
[jugular vein], quhairwith he dang [drove] the said umqle
Johnne to the grund out-ouer his bed; and thaireftir crewallie
strak him on his bellie with his feit; quhairupoun he gaif ane
grit cry. And the said Robert, feiring the cry could haif
bene hard, he thaireftir maist tyrannouslie and barbarouslie
with his hand grippit him be the thrott or waisen [weasand],
quhilk he held fast ane lang tyme quhill he wirreit [strangled]
him; during the quhilk tyme the said Johnne Kincaid lay
struggilling and fechting in the panes of daith under him.
And sa the umqle Johnne was crewallie
murdreist and slain
be the said Robert."
It is noteworthy that the murderer anticipated
by more
than two centuries the methods whereby the miscreant Burke
unwarrantably achieved the distinction of adding a new word
to the dictionary.
The indictment of Weir infers that the
lady was present
and assisted in the deed, but says nothing either of the participa-
tion of the nurse or any other accomplice therein.
The part played by Lady Warriston in this
midnight tragedy
is thus described by herself to her spiritual adviser, as set forth
by him in his Memorial of her conversion: " I think I hear
presently [now] the pitifull and fearfull cryes which he gave
[22]
when he was strangled; and that vile sin which I committed
in murdering mine own husband is yet before me. Alace !
I pityed not his cryes then, but God has pityed my cryes since;
and albeit I would give him no mercy, yet my God hath given
me mercy . . . . When that horrible and fearfull sin was done,
I desyred the unhappy man who did it--for my own part, the
Lord knoweth I laid never my hands upon him to do him evil,
but as soon as that man gripped him and began his evil turn,
so soon as my husband cryed so fearfully, I leaped out over
my bed and went to the hall, where I sat all the time till that
unhappy man came to me and reported that mine husband was
dead--I desired him, I say, to take me away with him, for I
feared tryall; albeit flesh and blood made me think my father's
moen [influence] at Court would have saved me. Yet he
refused to take me with him, saying, "You shall tarry still;
and if this matter come not to light, you shall say he died in
the gallery, and I shall return to my master's service. But
if it be known, I shall fly and take the crime on me, and none
dare pursue you.' " Weir seems to have been a magnanimous
assassin.
The ballad contains no allusion to this man's
share in the
murder; the protagonists are the lady and her nurse, with the
personal assistance of the Evil One:--
The Foul Thief knotted the tether,
She lifted his head on hie,
The nourice drew the knot,
That gar'd Lord Waristoun die.
Discovery and retribution followed swiftly upon
the deed.
How information of the fact reached the authorities in Edin-
burgh we do not know--
But word's gane doun to Leith,
And up to Embro toun,
That the lady she has slain the laird,
The laird o' Waristoun.
[23]
Next morning, however, the officers of justice
entered the
house of Warriston, where they found the body of the murdered
laird, and apprehended the widow, together with her nurse,
Janet Murdo, and two " hyred women," her domestic servants.
Weir, aware that the murder was discovered, fled, and for four
years evaded the penalty of his crime. Lady Warriston told
her confessor: "At first, that I might seem to be innocent,
I laboured to counterfeit weeping; but do what I would,
I could not finde a tear." The four women were then removed
in custody to the Tolbooth, the old prison of Edinburgh, famous
in fact and fiction as "The Heart of Midlothian."
By an ancient charter under the Great Seal
from King
James the Third the Provost and Magistrates of the city were
granted an ample criminal jurisdiction as Sheriffs within their
burgh, in pursuance of which they had been in use, as appears
from their records, "to take tryall of Murthers and Slaughters
committed within their bounds:" By a subsequent statute of
James the Fourth the four pleas of the Crown were exempted
from their jurisdiction, a Sheriff being only entitled to judge
a case of murder, in the words of that eminent authority,
Sir George Mackenzie, "If the Murtherer was taken Red-hand,
that is to say immediately committing the Murder, in which
case he must proceed against him within three Suns."
In the circumstances of the present case,
therefore, the
trial took place before the Magistrates of Edinburgh instead
of the Lords of Justiciary. That this course was adopted is
unfortunate for students of criminology, as the greater part
of the criminal records of the city of Edinburgh are lost. Even
the researches of the indefatigable Pitcairn, whose mother,
Maidment says, was a daughter of Kincaid of that ilk, and
well acquainted with the family traditions, failed to discover
any trace of the proceedings.
With regard to the guilt of the nurse and
servants Lady
Warriston in the Memorial before mentioned expresses her-
self as follows: "As to these weemen who was challanged
[24]
THE TOLBOOTH
OF EDINBURGH
with me, I will also tell you my mind concerning them. God
forgive the nurse, for she helped me too well in mine evil
purpose; for when I told her what I was minded to do, she
consented to the doing of it; and upon the Tuesday when the
turn was done, when I sent her to seek the man who would
do it, she said, `I shall go seek him, and if I get him not,
I shall seek another; and if I get none, I shall do it myself.' "
The author of the Memorial states that "this the nurse also
confessed, being asked before her death." "As for the other
two weemen," continues Lady Warriston, " I request that you
neither put them to death nor any torture, because I testify
they are both innocent and knew nothing of this deed before
it was done and the mean time of the doing of it; that which
they knew they durst not tell for fear, for I had compelled
them to dissemble."
The trial, which, as we have seen, had to
take place "within
three suns," was fixed for Thursday, 3rd July, the third day
after the murder. At ten o'clock that morning, according to
the reverend author of the Memorial, "Our sermon being ended,
one came to me, saying that this lady was in an evil estate,
hardened in her sin, without any remorse, and therefore desired
me to visit her and to deal with her as the Lord should give me
power, to see if I could draw her to a confession and sorrow
for what she had done." This duty the good man willingly
accepted, apparently to the eternal welfare of the prisoner and
certainly to the enrichment of psychologic literature, of which
his contribution forms an astounding chapter. The result was
recorded by him in a manuscript bearing the breathless title
"A Worthy and Notable Memorial of the great Work of Mercy
which God wrought in the Conversion of Jean Livingston,
Lady Warriston, who was Apprehended for the vile and
horrible Murder of her own husband, John Kincaid, committed
on Tuesday, July 1, 1600, for which she was Execute on
Saturday following. Containing an Account of her obstinacy,
earnest repentance, and her turning to God; of the odd
[25]
Speeches she used during her Imprisonment; of her great and
marvellous Constancy, and of her Behaviour and manner of
her Death, observed by one who was both a seer and hearer
of what was spoken."
The authorship of this wondrous document is
attributed
by Sharpe to Mr. James Balfour, then minister of the north-
west part of Edinburgh, whose colleague, Mr. Robert Bruce,
the celebrated leader of the Presbyterians, was, as we shall
see, called in at a later stage to consult upon what at first
appeared to be a hopeless case.
They've taen the lady and fause nourice,
In prison strong they hae them boun' ;
The nourice she was hard o' heart,
But the bonny lady fell in a swoon.
So runs the ballad; but by the time of the minister's
visit
he found "the bonny lady" in anything but a passive condition.
He describes her as "raging in a senseless furry, disdainfully
taunting every word of grace that was spoken to her, impatiently
tearing her hair, sometimes running up and down the house
[chamber] like one possessed, sometimes throwing herself on
the bed and sprawling, refusing all comfort by word, and when
the book of God was brought to her, flinging it upon the walls
twice or thrice most unreverently." The admonitions of her
visitor "she scorned in a headfull laughter," and called his
ghostly counsel "Trittle Trattle." When he pictured the
blessed state of the elect she flippantly remarked, "I was
never in Heaven to see that !" adding, "with a mocking
laughter, `If I go to Heaven, I go' "; nor was she more moved
by his forecast of her future in another place. "I regard not,"
she said, " I will die but once: I care not what be done with
me." This, says the reverend author, "she spoke very
desperately and therewith teared her hair out of her head."
The minister had brought certain disciples
to witness
his treatment of this difficult case. "One standing by"
[26]
personally recommended the lady to repent of her sin, to whom
she made the pertinent rejoinder, "You will not dye for it
I must answer for it myself," which the minister characterised
as "beastly stubborness." "However you rage and fret now
at every word I speak to you," said he, "promising yourself
impunity from the deserved punishment of your sin, yet within
a few hours, when you shall hear the sentence of death pro-
nounced against you, you will be better tamed and the pride
of your heart will be broken in another manner." To this the
lady made no answer, "but incontinent called for a drink," and
having drunk, appropriately enough, "to contentment," threw
the cup on the floor and turned her back upon her visitor.
So he left her, expressing the hope that their next meeting
"should be more comfortable."
Shortly after his departure Lady Warriston
was led out
to her trial, and, having been duly found guilty of the murder
of her husband, was condemned to die. Upon what evidence
she was convicted we cannot tell. Certainly she did not plead
guilty. We do not even know whether she was indicted as
the chief actor or merely as art and part in the crime. Weir,
the actual perpetrator, had for the time escaped, the nurse was
manifestly not of the stuff of which informers are made, and
she as well as one of the "hyred women" was also condemned.
It may be that the other servant, who does not seem to have
been brought to trial, turned King's evidence against her
mistress, or yielded to the pressing arguments of "the Boot,"
whereby in those days the prosecutor seldom failed to obtain
the requisite testimony. The lady faced the ordeal of her trial
with singular courage, and, as the minister was informed by an
eye-witness, "it was a wonder to see how little she was moved,
in so far that when the sentence of death--that she should
be hanged at a stock and afterwards burnt to ashes--was
pronounced against her, she never spoke one word, nor altered
her countenance." This horrible form of death--burning
after being "wirreit" (strangled) at the stake--was then the
[27]
usual punishment for women in such cases; in atrocious in-
stances the criminal was "brunt quick" (burnt alive). Lady
Warriston, however, was to escape this dreadful doom.
So soon as she was brought back to the Tolbooth
from
the place of trial the condemned woman sent for the minister
whom she had treated so cavalierly in the morning. When he
returned to the prison he found that his prophecy had been
amply fulfilled. The lady was indeed "better tamed," whether
by the workings of conscience or the extinction of her hopes
we can only conjecture. Her father's interest, if exerted in her
behalf, which, as we shall see, is unlikely, had failed to save
her from the physical penalty of her sin. That she had relied
on his influence enabling her to escape with her life would
sufficiently account for her altered mind, but the minister
claimed that her change of mood was truly miraculous. At
a later stage of their conference, however, when he inquired
the reason of her former obduracy, she answered very pitifully
"The love of this natural life, which I made ever too great
estimation of, whereof I was then put in hope, notwithstanding
of the evil turn I had done. The Lord forgive them that
furthered me or made me loath either to confess or take upon
me any guiltiness; but now, I thank God, I am otherwise
minded." Here the reverend author unwittingly lets the
cat out of the bag.
"Such an odd mercy, such deep feeling, and
such high
measure of grace," says the delighted divine, "saw I never
in any creature as I saw in her, considering the ignorance and
profanity of her whole life before, who had profited more in
knowledge and feeling in the space of thirty-seven hours--for
no longer time was between the moment of her first conversion
and the time of her execution: the Lord began to work with
her in mercy upon Thursday at two hours in the afternoon,
and she gave up her soul to Him in peace upon the Saturday
following at three hours in the morning--nor, alace ! over
many has done in thirty-seven years, yea, all their lifetime."
[28]
He invites the reader himself to repentance, " that this silly
creature, being but a woman and a bairn of the age of twenty-
one years, be not a witness against the hardness and security
of our hearts."
She saluted him "very lovingly," wherein he
quaintly
admits he perceived a great alteration, "in respect we had
parted so hardly before noon," and informed him that she
found a spark of grace beginning in her. Full of joy, the good
man prayed with her at considerable length, after which she
remarked: "The spark I was telling you of is grown to a
great height; and immediately uttered these words: `Lord, for
mercy and grace at Thy hand for Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ
His sake, to the glory of Thy mercy and the safety of my silly
soul !' This prayer had she afterwards ever in her mouth as
a common proverb, that I may say she uttered five hundred
times before her death."
The minister, finding the interesting penitent
in so hopeful
a case, "desired to hush the house that we might be keeped
quiet, and so might have a better occasion to confer, being about
one afternoon, from which till eight at night we were well and
spiritually occupied." During this period she dictated to him
her will. "This done, she subscribed that which I wrote; and
thereafter we entered into a conference of sin, of God's mercy,
and the joys of Heaven," which the lady discussed in a spirit
vastly different from that exhibited by her earlier in the day,
sometimes for joy smiling, sometimes for sorrow weeping,
uttering many heavenly. sayings and words of great assurance,"
of which the minister regrets he did not make notes at the
time.
At eight o'clock he withdrew for an hour's
rest, and return-
ing, found her "very joyfull at her supper, mixing her bodily
feeding with words of spiritual comfort, to the great joy and
contentment of very many who heard her." The meal over,
they "went to prayer" again till midnight, "at which time she
desired to sleep." The minister then left her, promising to
[29]
return early in the morning, when the execution was expected
to take place at nine o'clock.
Between four and five on the Friday morning
the energetic
pastor was back at the Tolbooth, and found that the lady was
still asleep. On being assured by "them that had walked with
her" that she had manifested a visible growth of grace during
the night he forbore for the nonce to interrupt her slumbers, and
turned his attention to the nurse. She seems to have proved
a tougher subject, for he found her "very evil," and says
nothing of the result of his ministrations; so, thinking that her
mistress bad "sleeped too long," he "caused waken her," and
resumed his more fruitful labours.
The worthy minister was sufficiently human
to desire that
his famous colleague, Mr. Robert Bruce, should witness the
triumphant result of his converting zeal, so at his suggestion
that eminent man was summoned forthwith. The doughty
champion of the Presbyterians was soon to make a figure in
history by refusing to preach his belief in James the Sixth's
incredible narrative of what occurred at Gowrie House on the
afternoon of 5th August following, exactly a month after Lady
Warriston's death. Rarely was "King Jamie the sapient and
sext" so taken to task as by the indomitable divine, who gave
"but a doubtsome trust" to that unreliable monarch's princely
word.
Mr. Robert came and marvelled, as well he
might. He who
was soon to brave unflinchingly the wrath of an incensed Sove-
reign was moved to shed tears of joy. A little before his coming
the lady had asked to see her infant child. Her ghostly coun-
sellors at first were "loath to it," fearing "least the sight of him
should draw her heart again after him and make her wae to
leave him;" but upon her assurance to the contrary they
relented, and the child was brought to her. She kissed the
unconscious infant for the last time, "desired Mr. Bruce to
over see him that he should be trained up in the fear of God,
and sent him away without any sorrow." The minister then
[30]
escorted Mr. Robert out of the Tolbooth, and presently returned
with the welcome news that the prisoner's doom was altered,
and that she would not be burnt, but be beheaded. This
mitigation of her sentence was probably due to the social
rank of her family, the "Maiden" being deemed a more
genteel instrument than the stake.
None of Lady Warriston's own relatives visited
her while
in prison. As persons of position and influence they appear to
have deeply resented the disgrace which she had brought upon
them, and not only did they allow the law to take its course,
but, according to Pitcairn, they had first intended and applied
for the unusual hour of nine o'clock on Friday evening as the
time for her execution, with a view to avoiding publicity. This,
however, was overruled. Her cause must have been wholly
indefensible, otherwise they could hardly have been so anxious
for her speedy death.
Her father seems to have made no effort to
save her life.
That he possessed both influence and opportunity sufficient to
do so if he had wished, appears from the statement of Mr.
Gibson, in his history of the Lairds of Dunipace, that John
Livingstone had been in attendance on James the Sixth since
that King's earliest years, and was his intimate friend and
favourite. James stayed with him at Dunipace in the following
year, and subsequently gave his host a knighthood. In the
ballad "the grit Dunipace " harshly repudiates his erring
daughter-
Up spak the Laird o' Dunnypace--
Sat at the King's right knee--
Gar nail her in a tar barrel
And hurl her in the sea.
In one version His Majesty himself, moved by the
youth
and beauty of the fair criminal, offers to grant her life--
"because you are of tender year"; but this the lady refuses,
only asking that the form of her death may be changed--
[31]
Cause tak' me out at night, at night,
Lat not the sun upon me shine,
And tak' me to yon heading-hill,
Strike aff this dowie head o' mine.
King James grants the boon, but "a sorry man was
he "--
I've travell'd east, I've travell'd west,
And sailed far beyond the sea,
But I never saw a woman's face
I was sae sorry to see dee.
Doubtless the ballad-makers exaggerate
the royal sensibility,
which was in no way remarkable where the sufferings of others
were concerned.
On receiving the intelligence that her doom
was changed
Lady Warriston underwent, according to her enthusiastic
confessor, a veritable transformation. "The heavenly beauty
of her face at that time shined far beyond the naturall beauty
that ever I saw in her heretofore," which he attributed to the
Holy Spirit "decoring and beautifying His own temple as a
presage of that glory she was going to." The hour of the
execution was still unknown to the person chiefly interested,
and as the strain was beginning to tell upon her, the minister
considerately "suffered her to sleep about the space of half an
hour." At mid-day, having awakened her and lifted her out of
bed, he "set her on a stool," and until two o'clock continued "in
heavenly exercises without intermission,"during which time the
lady "cast such flours of grace out of her mouth" that those
who heard her "weept " for joy and admiration. "Sundry
honest men, to the number of fifteen," had been invited to wit-
ness this improving spectacle. "Alace ! " exclaimed the reverend
exhibitor, "that we should be such unprofitable hearers of so
great grace in this dear saint, that we should let so many
precious words fall to the ground! " Whereupon he began to
make notes of the "holy and wise sentences "uttered by" this
sweet young woman,"upbraiding himself the while for "a sin
[32]
of grievouse ommission," in that he had "slipped so many pearles
of grace which came out of her mouth hitherto." He had,
however, little to reproach himself with on that score, as his
memory seems to have served him wonderfully well.
The later phases of the conference, wherein
the ghostly
surgeon and his assistants perform a sort of ante-mortem exami-
nation upon their hapless subject, savour somewhat too strongly
of the moral dissecting-room for non-professional readers.
When it is remembered that this girl, just out of
her teens,
had in the small hours of Wednesday morning superintended
the murder of her own husband in circumstances of singular
atrocity, on Thursday had been tried, found guilty, and con-
demned to a horrible death, and was thereafter for thirty-seven
hours continuously exposed to the combined assaults of the
ecstatic divine and his fifteen spiritual assessors, only suffered
to take brief snatches of sleep from which she was roused to
perform further mental gymnastics, and ever stimulated to
fresh feats by the rapturous applause of her edified audience,
the lay mind is apt to attribute the recorded result to causes
less miraculous than natural.
During a temporary lull in these "comfortable
speaches"
she was reminded that the time of "flitting to God" drew near,
and was asked how she was contented with it. "Many days
have I lived in this vail of misery," replied the girl of twenty,
"and yet had I never a contented heart unto this day. I would
not lose the joyes whereof I have presently a sense for all the
pleasures in the worlde." She then "fell furth" in prayer again,
and afterwards called for refreshment, of which she must have
stood in no common need. "I drink," said she, "to all my kind
friends, yea, even to my foes, and, chiefly, I drink to all my
brethern and sisters in the Lord." The honest men "exorted"
her to constancy and courage. "Why should I fear death ? "
she replied; "I would not lose the life I am going to through
this death for a thousand lives in this world."
It was now four o'clock in the afternoon of
Friday, and
[33]
sword came that "immediately was brought down the Maiden,
with which she was to be beheaded." This instrument of death
--the Scots guillotine--may still be seen at Edinburgh in the
Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. To the
adaptive genius of the Regent Morton, who with much propriety
is alleged to have been its first victim, Scotland is said to owe
this practical improvement in the administration of justice.
One is little surprised to learn that the penitent found the
news welcome. Meanwhile she was afflicted by diverse
rumours concerning the hour of her execution, "some at 9
a clock at night, others that it would be tymously in the morn-
ing," to the reporters whereof she remarked, "You give me
many frights, but the Lord will not suffer me to be affrighted."
The fame of this notable conference having
spread through-
out the city "there came to the door of the prison-house severals
of all ranks, who hearing by report of the strange workings of
God's spirit in the heart of this saint wer very desirouse to see
her and hear herself speak." The penitent was equal even to
this new call upon her endurance: "I care not," said she, "who
see me, that I may be an example to all both of sin and mercy ";
so the multitude were admitted, overflowing the prison, to whom
she uttered such "heavenly speaches as made both them that
were without and those that were within to lift up our voice and
weep, while in the meantime her countenance and behaviour
wer most merry in the Lord." Sometimes she walked up and
down, that all who came might hear and see her; sometimes she
addressed the crowd from the door--"for the dore and the stair
wer never empty, but as one company departed another imme-
diately rushed in, desiring to be comforted by her speaches."
One wonders if the Tolbooth authorities had also lost their
heads. "Such," says the complacent contriver of this amazing
scene, "was the holy and comfortable exercise of this penitent
sinner from four of the clock at night till eight of the clock, some-
times lying, sometimes going, to comfort her body, but all the
time never ceasing to praise God with her mouth for His loving
[34]
mercy." The burden of her discourse was that she had been
"a silly sinner," who was now assured of salvation.
Presently there arose "a great din" in the
street among the
people waiting there to witness her execution. She looked
down from her window upon the careless crowd, "sporting and
taking their pleasure among themselves," and remarked, "These
people laugh now; but they have cause to mourn, because not
every one of them will get that great mercy and repentance
which I have gotten." This she said, we are told, "very heavily "
--perhaps the grapes were somewhat sour--and the probing of
her lacerated conscience was resumed.
It would seem that certain profane members
of the audience
ventured to doubt the genuineness of this sudden conversion, as
the miracle-worker himself candidly admits. "I grant that
these speaches of hers and the great boldness and access which
she had in her to God seemed incredible to many, being wrought
in such a short time"; but he adopts the explanation of the
penitent herself--"It is not I who speaks, but it is the Lord who
possesses me that speaketh it within me." "Ther is no tempta-
tion of the devil can now get entry in me," she boastfully adds;
but the next moment she is showing herself at the window to
the people climbing up to the house tops to obtain a glimpse
of her, which, in a less saintly person, might savour of the
"grievouse sin" of vanity.
When reproached for her former negligence
in matters of
religion, she deprecated church-going except in the proper
spirit, failing which, as she wisely observed, "they will weary
more sitting in the kirk one hour than in ten days spent in
vice."
At eight o'clock a brief truce was called
for supper. "I sup
with you this night," said she, "but I will sup with the Lord
to-morrow." The entertainment appears to have been excellent,
and the appetites of the party suffered nothing by reason of its
ominous surroundings. "A more comfortable did I eat never
any," is the minister's comment. The spiritual level of the
[35]
conversation was maintained during the meal, "as the question
fell in concerning the malice of the Tempter." On its conclusion
the guests arose from the table for public prayer, after which
the lady returned to her wonted exercises, "casting furth such
flushes of grace to us as God gave her occasion to utter." At
ten o'clock she retired, but not to rest, for the pastor and his
disciples, with some lack of taste, remained in the chamber.
"Notwithstanding, she lay not idle in her bed, but still delighted
us with her holy speaches."
About midnight she conferred apart with her
confessor,
when "many things wer spoken to and fro." Here for the
first time they condescended to mundane affairs. "She purged
herself very sincerely from many scandalouse things she had
been bruitted with, that she might clear herself from those
false reports that her house was charged with." This evidently
has reference to some scandal of the nature alluded to in one
of the ballads--her alleged infidelity to her husband, perhaps
with Robert Weir. She then gave the minister the account of
her own share in the murder which has been already quoted.
With regard to her intention to make her escape with Weir
when the deed was done, she said, "Now if I had fled with that
unhappy man at that time, what would have become of me?
No doubt I should have born about a heavy sin whereof I am
now relieved in God's mercy. And what would have been mine
estate? No doubt I should have been a vagabond and drawn
to harlotry and many other sins." It seems probable that there
was something unexplained in the relations between Lady
Warriston and her husband's murderer.
At three o'clock in the morning of Saturday,
5th July, this
wonderful conference was abruptly closed by the arrival of
the Magistrates of Edinburgh, who were "brought into the
prison by her friends" (relatives) to take her out to her death.
Some of these, in the minister's opinion, were "too earnest to
hast her away that she might be execute before any should
know of it." Her family, as has been mentioned, had shown
[36]
throughout an indecent anxiety to get their erring kinswoman
quietly and expeditiously despatched, and having failed as to
the Friday night, this was their latest move. The pastor
opposed it on religious grounds: "Will you deprive God's
people of that comfort which they might have in this poor
woman's death? Will you obstruct the honour of it by putting
her away before the people rise out of their beds?" The
magistrates were willing that she should "stay till sunrising,
but her friends were so importunate, that it was not granted."
Her husband's brother, who was of the party, showed more
humanity: he kissed the girl and forgave her before she was
led to the scaffold.
On the way to the place of execution, which
was at the
Girth Cross, the ancient boundary of the Abbey Sanctuary at
the foot of the Canongate, she behaved herself "so cheerfully
as if she had been going to her wedding and not to her death."
When she came to the scaffold, a stage or platform erected in
the centre of the street, she looked up at the "Maiden" with
"two longsome looks, for she had never seen it before," noting
which the minister bade her be not afraid. "This is but a dead
enimy," said he, "a piece of wood and iron; there is no death
here but a parting, and entering into a better life . . . . You
have been those few hours bygone putting on your harnass
within the house; now the Lord has brought you to the field
to use your weapons . . . . As to your burial and honourable
handling of your corps, tell your will to your friends here
present and it shall be done." This, he adds, "was done very
honourably."
Though it was then barely four o'clock in
the morning a
great crowd surged around the scaffold, to whom, from each of
the four corners in turn, she addressed her last speech and
dying confession, which she delivered with such courage and
dignity that many said, "This woman is ravished with a higher
spirit than man or woman's." This done she bade her friends
"good night," and the minister "convoyed her by the arms" to
[37]
the place of her expiation. Lady Warriston then desired him
to give her to God out of his own hand. His final offices in
her behalf, which he reports at length, savour, as Sharpe
observes, "more of the absolution of a Roman Catholic priest,
than the pious and earnest prayers of a Protestant divine." On
receipt of these assurances she laughed for joy. The pastor,
however, was so affected by her farewell words that he left the
scaffold and departed.
She maintained to the end a fortitude in the
circumstances
truly remarkable, justifying the encomium of Birrel--" quha
diet verie patiently." A clean cloth being brought to bind
her eyes, "to the fastening thereof she took out of her mouth
a pin and gave it out of her own hand "--
Tak aff this gowd brocade,
But let my petticoat be;
And tie a kerchief round my face,
That the people may not see.
She submitted "sweetly and graciously" to the
executioners
orders, laid her head upon the block, and, holding the hand of
one of her friends, calmly awaited the event. During this time,
which was long, for the axe was but slowly loosed and "fell not
down hastily," she ceased not to pray aloud. "Into thy hands,
O Lord, . . . " she cried; and at the pronouncing of the words
the axe fell.
At the same hour of that summer morning Janet
Murdo,
"the fause nourice," and one of the "hyred women" were, in
terms of their fearful sentence, duly "wirreit" at the stake
and burned upon the Castle Hill. No record of their trial has
been preserved. They were at least more fortunate than their
mistress, in that their last hours were not made the occasion of
such scenes as those by which hers were disfigured. The nurse,
as we have seen, was certainly a prime mover in the murder
and deserved her fate. The other, who was exonerated by her
mistress while in prison, probably suffered as an accessory
after the fact. If, as appears to have been the case, their
[38]
execution was fixed for the same untimely hour as that of
Lady Warriston at the suggestion of her susceptible relatives,
in order to afford a counter-attraction for the populace, the
device failed, the less lurid spectacle proving the greater
draw.
Not until four years later was Justice
able to bring the
absconding "horse-boy" to account. The trial of Robert Weir
took place at Edinburgh in the Justice Court, on 26th June
1604, before Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Hart, the Justice-
Depute, who in 1608 presided at the trial of George Sprot,
the Eyemouth notary, for alleged complicity in the so-called
Gowrie Conspiracy. The indictment, verdict, and sentence are
printed by Pitcairn, but of the circumstances of Weir's arrest
nothing is known. The " Perseweris " or private prosecutors
were Patrick, Thomas, Archibald, and Adam Kincaid, "all
brether to the defunct." Patrick, who is designed as "tutour
of Wariestoune," was no doubt the guardian of his infant
nephew. The indictment sets forth the manner of the
murder, as before related. No witnesses appear to have
been called, and the jury, "in respect of his Confessioun maid
thairof in Judgement," found the prisoner " ffylit " (guilty) of
the crime libelled. Sentence of death was then pronounced
by the mouth of James Sterling, dempster of Court, in terms
so unusual as to warrant quotation:--" Discernit and ordanit
the said Robert Weir to be tane to ane skaffold to be fixt
besyde the Croce of Edinburgh, and thair to be brokin upoune
ane Row [wheel] quhill he be deid, and to ly thairat during
the space of xxiiij houris. And thaireftir his body to be
tane upone the said Row and set up in ane publict place betwixt
the place of Warestoun and the toun of Leyth ; and to remane
thairupoune ay and quhill command be gevin for the buriall
thairof. Quhilk is pronouncet for dome."
Pitcairn notes this as the first recorded
instance of such
punishment having been inflicted in Scotland, but he himself
has printed in his invaluable work a similar sentence pro-
[39]
nounced upon John Dickson, convicted of parricide on 30th
April 1591. This horrible form of execution, which was
unknown in England, was borrowed from the practice of
France and Germany, and was apparently adopted in these
two cases to impress the public mind with a due sense of
the exceptional atrocity of the respective crimes.
Birrell thus records in his Diary the
execution of the
sentence: "The 16 [26?] of Junii 1604 Robert Weir broken
on ane cart-wheel, with ane coulter of ane pleuche [plough],
in the hand of the hangman, for murdering of the guidman
of Warriston, quhilk he did 2 Julii 1600."
Thus was the Laird of Warriston at length
avenged. The
tragic story, as evidenced by the ballads, caught the popular
imagination and assumed the importance of a legend. The
account of the lady's conversion certainly exhibits an interest-
ing case of conscience, and as such is of value to the student
of metaphysics, but there is need for the caution given by
Sharpe against the mischievous tendency of a work which
teaches that a sinner, though stained with the worst of crimes,
may be transformed into a "sweet saint of God" in the twink-
ling of an eye--"then is crime cheap, for penitence is easy."
This warning applies with even greater force to the confession
of the Black Laird of Ormistoun, one of Darnley's murderers,
who, in extenuation of his crimes, remarked that within seven
years he never saw two good men nor one good deed, but
all kind of wickedness, yet was able, on the day of his hang-
ing, to say that he hoped to sup with God, being "assurit
that he was ane of His Elect."
[40]
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